In recognition of his extraordinary scientific achievements in the field of water, Prof. Dr. Torsten C. Schmidt is awarded the Ruhr Prize for Art and Science of the City of Mülheim an der Ruhr for the year 2022.

Congratulations!

The Faculty of Chemistry is now one of the institutions that have joined the Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) of the international organisation Beyond Benign. In doing so, it commits itself to making sustainability an integral part of teaching and to reducing or even avoiding hazardous substances. Dean Torsten C. Schmidt and Stefan Rumann, Prorector of the UDE, signed the agreement.

Dr Anna Rosa Ziefuß and Tina Friedenauer from the Barcikowski group have developed a new brewing process for coffee. With the help of an ultra-short pulsed laser, the coffee is brewed cold. They have published their result in npj Science of Food. In the future the process could also be of interest to the beverage industry, so the two are currently working on a spin-off company.

Our long-time ZWU member Prof. Dr. Christoph Donner will become the new chairman of the board as well as head of the technology department of the Berlin Wasserbetriebe in January 2023. However, Mr Donner will remain actively connected to the ZWU and continue his teaching activities at the UDE. The ZWU congratulates him and wishes him all the best for his new tasks.

On 27-28 September 2022, ZWU will host the Water Research Horizon Conference (WRHC) together with the Water Science Alliance. This year's two-day conference will focus on "Aquatic Ecosystems between Conservation and Exploitation".

Find out more about the programme.

To the registration.

Following the Science Council, the Joint Science Conference (GWK) has now also given green light for the new 70-million-euro building. The costs are shared by the federal and state governments and the UDE. With ACTIVE SITES the UDE gains a centre of international renown at which so-called active sites are researched in an aqueous environment.

Alexander Probst and his colleague Till Bornemann, together with scientists from Jena, have discovered that many microorganisms in rocks that live deep below the earth's surface in groundwater are also capable of producing biomass from inorganic substances. The team was able to show for the first time the extent to which these communities produce biomass in absolute darkness.

Find out more about the current activities and news from the ZWU network.